Now, after a 20-year police crackdown against gangs in one of Southern California’s most regal cities, the tide has turned, with crime at modern historic lows.

But instead of celebrating a hard-won victory, Pasadena police are themselves accused of kidnapping, beating and threatening to kill witnesses, withholding evidence in trials, attempting to bribe attorneys, wrongly shooting unarmed residents and a litany of civil rights abuses in their war against gangs and thugs.